About Me

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Somebody did a doougie in this cab?!?!?!?????

I will forever remember that line as the single funniest thing I've ever heard said in my cab. In 30 seconds I went from a slow smoldering rage to laughing so hard, I couldn't stop laughing for 3 days. Here's how it went..........

It was a normal winter afternoon. I started at 3:00 pm., and I headed out to the east side to start. I was lucky. I was going to sit on a couple of metro's that came out of the east Y at 3:30, when a delivery popped on Milwaukee st. I got the delivery, and as I got back in the cab the dispatcher stuffed me the metro's. Wow. What a start! I was going to go down the beltline and across the south beltline all the way to Verona rd. I was set for rush hour.

When I pulled behind the east Y, Koombiiyah came out right away. Koombiiyah? Yeah, she chant's koombiiyah like a broken record, which will drive you right out of your mind. I have a long standing deal with Koombiiyah, if she keeps her mouth shut she can sit next to the window in the front seat. She waddles up to the cab, opens the passenger door to the front seat and gets in. I say to myself that she must have been playing basketball or something, she really smells like she needs a bath. It takes around 3 minutes for the other passenger to come out, she's the quiet type, she sits in the back seat and never says a word.

I start off down Stoughton rd., and I'm hitting everything in sight!!! By the time we get past Cottege Grove rd., the smell is getting pretty bad. I tell Koombiiyah to roll down the window.

"I don't wanna roll down the window. I think I be cold", she says.

This goes back and forth a couple of times, me telling her to roll down the window and her refusing. Finally I tell her that if she doesn't roll down the window, she's going in the back seat. "Why I gotta go in the back seat?", she sighed, "I not singing."

"Roll the window down, and roll it down now!!!!!"

She gave in and rolled it down. Sitting in the front seat was very important, and she'd act about like a 6 year old. Usually she's actually a sort of fun passenger. How many 40ish dwarfs use a ball point pen as a make believe cigarette, take fake puffs off it, and tap fake ash's off it?

I had passengers in and out, delivery's in and out, and when I finally got to South Towne, the cab was loaded, 5 passengers, so she had to scoot over and let a rather elegantly dressed woman in, who wore a white car coat. The woman in the white car coat was going to the dealer to pick up her Lexus, she sat right where Koombiiyah had been sitting.

When I got to Leopold Way to where Koombiiyah got out, she waddled away from the cab toward the building. There was a wet spot on the seat where she'd been sitting, and it was steaming in the cold winter air. The stench was beyond description. As she waddled away, I could see the dark circle on the back of her coat about hip pocket high. It was immediately obvious, she'd been sitting in a pile since she'd gotten in at the east Y. I was ready to kill somebody!!!!!!! Oh, my god!!!!!!

I still had another oblivious passenger in the back seat, he sat there like a Spinx, and if he smelled it, he never let on. I went to the gas station at Todd drive and used the window squeegee to clean the seat. Thank god those Diplomats had vinyl bench seats. With the windows open, I took the last passenger to Lumley, and I was empty.

A short time later, I got a lady from Allied drive to south Park (yes, that south Park, in fact). I told her all about it, and she said that she figgured I had a perfict right to be as wound as I was. She gave me her sympathies, paid me, got out and I sat and steamed for a few more minutes.

Then I got 2 rides to do. The grocery for 3 people going to Fisher st., and a single from Bram to Sommerset. I pulled into the grocery and there were 2 huge black ladies and a skinny black man waiting with 3 carts of groceries. The guy got in the front seat, while the ladies filled the trunk. When they sat down, they told me the address, I put the cab in drive and lifted my foot off the brake.

The cab hadn't moved 3 feet when the black guys finger went past my nose. He was pointing out the drivers window, his hand right in front of my face. He said, "Hey man, I left something in that cart. I left something in that cart."

I put my foot back down on the brake and turned and looked in to the darkess to see what he'd left in the cart. Then his finger was right in front of my head, he was pointing at me and his finger was only 2 inches from me. "Ah hah!!! Ah hah!!! I didn't leave nothing in that cart!! Ah hah!! Ah hah!! I gotcha!!!! I didn't leave nothing in that cart!! Ah hah!! Ah hah!! I gotcha!! I gotcha!!", the skinny black guy really thought he was funny.

I slowly turned. His finger was about 2 inches from my nose. I lifted my finger and pointed it at him and coldly said, "You, got me?!? Why do you realize that less than an hour ago, somebody shit their pants, right where you're sitting??"

He came off the seat faster than anybody I've ever seen. He was holding himself up with both hands, one on the door rest and on the seat between us. The ladies in the back seat roared, they thought it was hysterical, "Ahhhh hah hah, you had to sit in the front seat. Ahhhhh hah hah........."

The guy sputtered out, "Whut, whut??? You mean somebody did a doougie in this cab?????" Then he slowly slumped back down onto the seat. "Oh man, I'm sitting in doougie. Oh man, I can smell it!!"

The ladies in the back seat continued to roar. He made me let him get into the back seat.

5 comments:

I remember my first vomit incident. I spent an hour cleaning the cab out, and I couldn't smell anything. I couldn't smell anything, full stop.

My next fare was a lady in expensive clothing, she was only going a couple of blocks, but she didn't want to walk in heels. She opens the door and instantly recoils. "Has somebody been sick in here?" she asks.

"No," I lie.

She gets in, goes the two blocks and shoots out, telling me to keep the change.

Next fare is a bloke and he jumps in, gives the name of a town just over the border, and starts telling me what an awful night he's had and his mates left him in this strange town, and now he's got to pay for the cab all by himself without splitting the fare.

Then he starts sniffing and looks at me, and I look at him.

"Ah, someone threw up in the car yesterday," I explained. "Bloody day driver."

The road stretched out ahead of us, long and lonely. We wound the windows down and he stuck his head out of his, and I kept mine inside, cause I couldn't smell anything but the faintest whiff if I put my mind to it, and the floral scent I'd spritzed inside the car from the dispenser at the car wash was covering that nicely. Three minutes worth, you'd hope so. That was a buck well spent.

But my passenger was gasping. He was in genuine distress. It was midwinter and he wasn't coping well with the icy blast. He was a Queenslander, and they only have a pale imitation of winter there. It was well below freezing and even though I had the cab heater cranked way up, the bits of him that were hanging outside weren't happy.

I could almost see his mental processes going. He'd had a bad night, this cab was costing him a fortune - he kept glancing at the meter - he was freezing his head off, he was likely sitting in a pile of stale vomit and the lying cabbie was taking him the wilderness route - I'd automatically gone down the back road - and nobody cared. I could see him running off without paying.

We entered town and you could smell it, above the whiff of vomit, the cloying floral and the clean blast of icy wind. He was going to run. He was fully justified.

"Ah, it's half rates for interstate," I said, looking at the meter which had forty lovely dollars on it. "A twenty will be fine."

He paid me, and I gave up for the night. Took the car home, stripped out the seats, washed everything washable, found a few puddles of recycled pizza had seeped under the back cushion, and I aired it out for a day and hung up a couple of air fresheners on full flow.

And you know, it never smelt right. Months after, I just had to open the door at the beginning of a shift, and I was instantly wearing that lady's high heels, my sweet little nose wrinkling in outrage and dismay.

Early one morning I pulled up to this house out in the woods. Passenger was late coming out, but it was a run out to Dulles, so I waited.The lady finally gets in the cab and apologizes, telling me that one of her dogs had encountered a skunk in the backyard and she had a hard time getting the dog back into the house. That was also the moment I realized that this women had somehow gotten the smell on herself or her clothes. Wanting a tip, I kept my mouth shut. The smell in the car wasn't overwhelming, but it was definitely noticeable.We got to the airport, she paid me, and I never said a word to her about her smell.Meanwhile, I went back to work. Several times during the course of the day passengers asked me if I had hit a skunk. I was amazed they could still smell it hours later even though I couldn't. Guess you get acclimated to it.Late in the afternoon I went by the office to pay manifest. I'm at the window which only has a couple of small slots to give cash and paperwork to the cashier when she asked me if I had had an encounter with a skunk. I was floored! Apparently the smell from this morning had gotten into my clothes as well.All I can say is, I'm glad I wasn't stuck on the plane with that lady.

who hasn't had someone shit, common, I like it when the hot chick in the short skirt slides across a seat covered in....whatever, "lets get out, I just felt something wet" hahahaha, she just cleaned it, she's welcome to leave. sorry dirty humor.